Before I call Amendment 1, I should alert the Committee that the noble Baronesses, Lady Harris of Richmond and Lady Brinton, will be taking part remotely.
1: Clause 1, page 2, line 2, after “workforce,” insert “including mental health and the impact of trauma,”
Member’s explanatory statement
This would explicitly require that mental health and the impact of trauma on the police workforce must be reported on as part of the report on the covenant.
My Lords, it is a great privilege to start the discussion of this very important Bill in Committee, and I look forward to discussing it with the Minister and, no doubt, many other colleagues across this House. I am particularly moved to speak on the policing part of the Bill and to open this discussion, since, as some of your Lordships will know, my father was a Metropolitan Police officer for 30 years. He retired fairly recently—over 30 years ago—and is still alive at the age of 95, so it is a great privilege and an honour to speak. One or two people may have met him; I am not sure. It probably goes back a bit further than that.
The serious point is that the amendment gives us the opportunity to start this debate by praising our police. Yes, there have been some serious questions raised about our police. Very well-documented issues have arisen which need proper investigation and inquiry, and they will, in due course, be looked at and raise serious questions. I am not saying that these issues are not important, but we should also recognise the serious job of work that the police do. The noble Lord, Lord Clarke, is in his place. Nottinghamshire has a very fine police force, as is the case across the country. Many of us have had cause to call on police officers and their staff to help us in our daily lives. That was evidenced in our own Parliament not long ago when PC Keith Palmer was killed on our premises as the result of a terrorist attack. Every single day, as we come on to the Estate, we see the police protecting us. It is important to set that on the record so that, when we discuss these issues, police across the country—both past and present—their staff and families know that we start from this perspective.
We strongly support the police covenant, which we believe is long overdue. These amendments are about making the covenant as strong and effective as it can be so that it works for police officers and their families. I know that the Minister will take the amendments in that spirit as we seek to clarify some parts of the clauses.
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One issue we want to raise is support at the point of retirement. The issues that can arise for a police officer leaving the policing environment after years of service and entering another workplace can have similarities to thoseexperienced by forces personnel on resettlement. Our amendment specifically mentions access to training courses to provide avenues for those who feel it is the right time to end their police service but are looking for somewhere else where they can use their skills.
Another key issue would then be access to support and financial planning, particularly for those who may need to give up their job earlier than they perhaps would otherwise have planned to. The question for the Minister is: what are we offering our officers by way of support when they are ready to leave the force and make that step?
Finally, I turn to Amendment 7, which would put a duty on health bodies to have due regard to the police covenant. The bodies covered by the amendment include clinical commissioning groups, NHS trusts and NHS foundation trusts. The key to this amendment is that it reflects what the Government provided for in the Armed Forces Bill, which put a legal duty on healthcare bodies. The point of the covenant is that it goes wider than the Home Office, which should already be occupied with the welfare of our police forces. This is about widening that discussion and support and embedding it in our communities, across departments and policy areas. The Government believed that measure would strengthen the Armed Forces covenant and we believe it would be a good step for this covenant.
In this group of important amendments, we seek further clarification from the Government on how the covenant will work and how we will make it a success. We all want the covenant to be what the police services of our country deserve and we can bring that about through the legislation that we pass in this Chamber.
My Lords, it is a very great pleasure to welcome the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, to this policing debate and to hear of his antecedents. I added my name to this amendment and, with your Lordships’ indulgence, will speak to Amendments 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7, to which I have also put my name. These all deal with the many associated issues in this group, as the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, just outlined.
I have been extremely concerned at the growing number of police officers and former police officers who have turned up at the police treatment centres run by the charity of which I am president with clear mental health issues alongside whatever physical injuries they might have. In the year 2019-20, we provided 3,600 hours of one-on-one counselling. Some 1,200 patients received well-being support through the psychological well-being programme, well-being weekends and recharge days. This is a 19% increase on those attending in 2018. To facilitate this growing area of work, we have provided a new clinical wing at PTC Harrogate, in association with Police Care UK, another police charity.
In its latest research, Police Care UK found that 90% of police officers will be exposed to multiple traumatic incidents during their career—a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker—and that one in five serving personnel are currently living with symptoms of PTSD.
While they do an amazing job at the St Andrews centre, the new clinical wing will be of enormous extra benefit, having two new wings with two floors and adding 20 bedrooms to the estate. It will give four additional counselling rooms, one nursing surgery room, six therapy rooms, three workshop spaces and a community room. Noble Lords can see how necessary these will be; we can only hope that the extra facilities will be enough to meet the increasing demand for well-being provision for the officers who need it.
My Lords, I was unable to speak at Second Reading on this topic of the police covenant. As the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, has already noted, this is an extraordinarily large and complex Bill, and Second Reading speakers were limited to a mere three minutes, meaning that, inevitably, some matters could not be raised. I apologise for raising what is from my perspective a new issue. Before I begin, I pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Harris for her many years of campaigning for the well-being and support of police officers.
I support all the amendments in this group, Amendments 1 to 7, which seek to ensure that police officers and former police officers have access to health services and particularly to mental health support, and to set this down in the Bill as an equivalent of the Armed Forces covenant. I will come on to the covenant later in my contribution.
We must recognise that our police officers and other emergency service personnel are on the front line day in, day out, often facing many things daily that ordinary members of the public would hope never to see once in their lives. That for decades police officers have “manned up” and internalised problems, because that was the culture, perhaps makes mental health pressures even more inevitable. The Police Federation reports that resilience in the service is at an all-time low and that officers are being put under inordinate amounts of pressure, which is taking its toll on their health and well-being. Even worse, the unprecedented cuts to the police service have meant that officers are under more strain now than ever before. While many are asked to do more and more with fewer resources, and have risen admirably to the challenge, it is inevitable that the increased pressures they are facing will have an impact on them, mentally and physically.
The Police Federation campaign “Protect the Protectors” noted that between 2015 and 2017, over 20 police officers took their own lives each year. That is almost two a month. Something must change. Research has shown that emergency workers are twice more likely than the public to identify problems at work as the main cause of their mental health problems, but they are also significantly less likely to seek help—the “man up” culture. Therefore, it is good that in 2017, the Police Federation developed a nine-point plan for police organisations to work with it, supporting serving staff and ensuring that the well-being and mental health of staff is properly delivered as soon as it is needed.
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Richard said: “What you see takes its toll, but it is not just the incidents themselves, it’s everything that goes with it. The stress, the workload and the IT problems all add up, and on top of that, you add the other things. First, it is a culture, particularly if you want to progress through the ranks, where it feels like you can’t be seen to fail or say no and that you must be available 24/7 and constantly get results. You look around, and no one else seems to be struggling. No one talks about it. We don’t all sit around like some sort of support group. In fact, a lot of the time you are in competition with each other.
Second, we have lost a lot of the mechanism and time to decompress. For all its faults, one thing that the canteen culture allowed for was the ability to unwind and process what you had just seen, just to sit with your mates and talk it through, and a lot of the time and space has been lost.
Third, we have almost stopped reacting like human beings. I’m not saying we should all go around hugging each other all the time, but sometimes it could really help, but people are too scared to make physical contact.”
Richard and many other officers will carry their condition with them and will often need access to NHS mental health services, and that too is a problem. We know that in August the NHS reported an official waiting list for mental health services of 1.6 million people, with estimates that more than 8 million people cannot even get on to those waiting lists at the moment. Those with severe and chronic mental health problems are finding access to services, even if they are in the system, is hard, especially if they are facing a crisis.
Saffron Cordery, deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents England’s 54 specialist mental health trusts, said:
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I suggest that the Minister looks at the lessons learned from the Armed Forces covenant, to build on that experience and mirror its strengths in the way in which it has developed. It is important that the covenant is designed to cover both former and serving police personnel; we welcome that. I want also to pay tribute to the Police Federation and all those who have long campaigned for the introduction of a covenant, the Police Federation having done so through its Protect the Protectors campaign.
The size of the Bill has been remarked on. It will raise a huge number of issues during the next few weeks. However, today’s debate and the amendments we have put forward are related to the covenant. I will speak also to the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Rosser.
Amendment 1 would put into the Bill that a report about the police covenant must specifically include
“mental health and the impact of trauma.”
I have also added my name to the important amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, which probes what access members and former members of the police workforce have to mental health programmes and support. It will be interesting to hear the Minister’s reply because the importance of mental health support for our officers cannot be overstated. As we know, they are regularly exposed to traumatic and dangerous situations in their job—something they willingly accept as part of their duty. As the covenant says, it is therefore incumbent on us to recognise the trauma that may be imposed on officers and their families, both when they are serving and when they have moved on or retired.
I sometimes think—as I am sure many other noble Lords do—what it must be like to go to some of the scenes of horrific murders or of child abuse. All these occur in the normal, everyday life of a police officer, who then has to go home. I know that the Government will want to ensure that this support is given to them. These amendments ask how we ensure that somebody who has to deal with such situations is given the support they deserve. The amendment would specifically recognise the impact of trauma in the Bill.
This was raised by a number of Members in the other place, particularly my colleague Sarah Champion MP, and I pay tribute to her work on that. She raised the necessity of training our officers in recognising and identifying trauma and how to deal with it. She said:
“The fact that across police forces there is not a standard level of support to be accessed once an officer feels he has the need for it is really letting our forces down.”—[Official Report, Commons, Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill Committee, 25/5/21; col. 178.]
That is a concern that we all have. No doubt there are examples of good practice, but how does one ensure such good practice across all forces and areas? The lack of consistency in mental health support is something that we need to address.
Since the debate in the Commons, to be fair to the Government, they have announced a programme of mandatory annual mental health checks—but they are for the Armed Forces. The Minister for Defence has called it an annual mental health MOT, with the intention of ensuring that our Armed Forces understand what help is available to them and are equipped to manage the unique pressures of service life. I wonder whether the Government might learn from that. Might that be something that could be applied to the context of the police in our country? We could learn from the Armed Forces covenant on what has worked with respect to this and from the successes and failures.
This is about the safety not only of the police but of our communities. Regular and high-quality mental health support makes sure that our police are fit to be in post, are able to process the situations that they deal with regularly as part of the job and are capable of supporting and responding to traumatised victims.
Amendment 3 would specifically add to the Bill that a report on the police covenant must look at what mental health support is required by officers’ families. This is to probe the simple issue of what support is available for an officer’s spouse, partner or family. The key thing here, which I am sure the Government will recognise, is that if your partner is regularly put in harm’s way in the course of their job, or they are traumatised by their experience during their service, there should be a service that you can call to seek support and to have a specialist speak to you about its impact on you and your family. That is an important point for us to consider.
Amendment 5 goes to the absolute heart of how the covenant must work. It would set up an oversight board with an independent chair and membership from policing organisations, including the Police Federation, the Police Superintendents’ Association, UNISON, the College of Policing and others. The oversight board would review the Secretary of State’s annual report on the covenant before it is laid before Parliament. The basis for this was put succinctly in the other place by my honourable friend for Croydon Central, who said:
“In essence, the amendment would ensure that the covenant does not have Ministers marking their own homework.”—[Official Report, Commons, Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill Committee, 25/5/21; col. 193.]
The covenant must belong to our police forces, and the Government must listen to our police. It should not be for the Home Secretary to decide how well the Government are fulfilling their duties under the covenant.
We recognise that, currently, there is an oversight board, which met for the first time over the summer, but that was chaired by the Home Secretary. This would rebalance that by putting an independent chair in her place. This is an important point about putting the police themselves in the driving seat, instead of Ministers.
I turn now to Amendment 6, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond, which has our full support. It would amend our own Amendment 5 to include the National Association of Retired Police Officers in the proposed oversight board. Our Amendment 2 would require the Secretary of State’s annual report on the covenant specifically to consider the support needed by the police workforce on retirement, including access to training courses. I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, for her work on this issue and look forward to her contribution later in our discussions.
A crucial part of the covenant and a key strength of it is that it applies, as I say, to both serving and former officers and their families. The service an officer has paid to their community and the impact it may have had on, for example, their health, does not finish the day that they retire from the force. The covenant is about that long-lasting partnership and recognition of the unique situation of the police workforce.
The impact of trauma is deeply debilitating and for many years officers felt that they could not speak out about it. But we have now seen clearly how damaging that can be. We absolutely must take the mental health of our police officers seriously and give them the support they need by including this requirement in the covenant.
In supporting Amendment 2 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, I declare an interest as an honorary member of the National Association of Retired Police Officers—NARPO. Why should former police officers not receive help and support and access to training when they require it? Many go on to do valuable work in other careers and the community and often need help with access courses.
My Amendment 6, which is an amendment to Amendment 5, as we have heard, seeks to insert the National Association of Retired Police Officers to the oversight board. I believe it is essential, as many of those former officers still need support. I have spoken on a number of occasions about the impact of being a police officer on an individual’s mental well-being, both during their time in the force and when they have left. The Bill will make it mandatory for the Home Secretary to publish a report on the police covenant each year outlining the work that has been done to protect officers and ensure that they are properly supported following the sacrifices they have made to be part of the force.
It is important that this report is considered by an independent oversight board, which can hold the Government to account on the work that they are doing around the police covenant, and they are not simply left to mark their own homework, as the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, has said.
Among those organisations that oversee the report, there must be an organisation which represents the police officers of the past, who, as I said, often continue to live with the effects of their job long after they have departed. Police officers bear witness to some of the most traumatic events and sacrifice so much, placing themselves in danger in order to protect society. It is therefore absolutely vital that their contribution is also acknowledged and any support that they need is given throughout their life. Placing the National Association of Retired Police Officers among the organisations giving oversight to the covenant ensures that officers past and present are supported in the continued challenges that a life in policing can bring.
Finally, I turn to Amendment 7. Every year, it costs £5 million to operate the two police treatment centres; 89% of that income is generated by donations from serving and retired police officers. The remainder comes from various sources: fundraising events, legacy donations, hospitality and lottery money. Noble Lords will note that not only do the PTCs save the NHS huge amounts of money by treating our police officers who present with trauma injuries; they treat psychological trauma as well. The PTCs are a charity—they do not get any money from the Government or the NHS. There should be some acknowledgement that the work that they do not only saves the NHS money but enables police officers to return to work much more quickly than they would otherwise have done if they had had to wait for NHS appointments—for physiotherapy, in particular. Have your Lordships tried to get an appointment with an NHS physiotherapist recently? Officers may also need mental health services appointments urgently. My amendment addresses those concerns and urges the Government to tell health providers that they must address the needs of police officers and ensure that they get the same recognition for treatment as that for members of the armed services.
There are 48 organisations that have worked in partnership with the Police Federation and with the mental health charity Mind. The guide that they have produced has all the information that employers need to set up and deliver mental health support in all blue-light organisations. This week, another excellent campaign, the Blue Light group, has reported that 87% of emergency responders have experienced stress and poor mental health. The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, was looking for good news, and it is that 83% of those who accessed this support through their organisation found it helpful. Mind tells me that the Home Office funding for this essential work—which has been running since 2015—is due to run out in March 2022. Can the Minister confirm that the Home Office will continue the support and funding for this vital work, not just support for blue-light workers but a blue-light service for blue-light workers?
Some officers are very badly affected and need more than can be offered by counselling and other internal support. The Police Federation tells the story of Richard, a DCI with a provisional diagnosis of PTSD when he sought help, which explains much of the pressure and distress that so many officers face.